ATHEISTS ASK

Is evolution fact or faith?

Exclusive: Ray Comfort answers common questions posed by skeptics

Christian evangelist Ray Comfort was a platform speaker at the 2001 National Convention of American Atheists, Inc., has spoken on the subject of atheism and evolution on ABC's 'Nightline,' on the BBC, at Yale University, is a TV co-host (with actor Kirk Cameron), and is the best-selling author of more than 70 books.

Believers in evolution believe that evolution is a proven fact, rather than a mere belief. What they don’t realize is that everything about evolution rests on a foundation of faith.

Nothing is observable without the believer having to exercise faith. When hearing such a thought, the devout devotee rushes to his evolution site to cut and paste what he believes to be facts. Then he presents them en masse with the zeal of a fundamentalist religious zealot. He has faith in what he believes is evidence – what he hears about old bones, ideas and dating processes.

Creationism on the other hand is observable. The Book of Genesis tells us that male and female were created in all the “kinds,” and in nature we see that except for a few hermaphroditic lowlifes, everything has male and female. Horses, cows, dogs, cats, elephants, giraffes, fleas, fish, kangaroos, polar bears and people all have male and female. That’s what the Bible says, and that’s what we observe in nature and in the fossil record.

Genesis tells us that each of these kinds would reproduce after its own kind, and that’s what we see in nature. Dogs reproduce dogs, cats reproduce cats, horses reproduce horses, etc. Nothing reproduces a different kind. There are variations within kinds such as tiny dogs and Great Danes, but each variation is restricted to the dog “kind.” All these things are observable. None of them needs the exercising of any faith. What we see in natural surroundings lines up perfectly with what we are told in Genesis.

But what we are told about evolution doesn’t line up with what we see in nature. While evolutionists would have us believe that everything evolved and is still evolving, there are no dogs or birds or plants that we can observe that are in the process of evolution. Everything is in a state of functional maturity.

After it was made, everything was “finished,” as Genesis says. We don’t observe anything dying because it has half a mouth and can’t eat, or has a semi-evolved stomach and can’t digest, or flies in a circle because it has only one partly-evolved wing, or drowns because it has semi-evolved gills.

The burden of proof lies with the believer in evolution, but he can’t deliver, because anything that is said to be observable when it comes to Darwinian evolution is conjecture, and that needs the exercising of faith. They believe in their evidence. We can point to ours.